Hunter Biden has been indicted on three federal gun charges.
President Joe Biden’s son has been charged with one count of false statement in the purchase of a firearm, one count of making a false statement related to information required to be kept by a federal firearms licensed dealer, and one count of possession of a firearm by a person who is an unlawful user of, or addicted to, a controlled substance.
The younger Biden is accused of lying about his drug abuse while purchasing a Colt Cobra revolver. He was formally indicted on Sept. 14 by a grand jury in Delaware.
Hunter Biden’s indictment comes just over 12 weeks after he accepted a plea deal on one charge of possession of a gun by a person who is a user or addict of illegal drugs. He also pled guilty to two counts of willful failure to pay federal income tax. He is accused of not paying federal taxes on more than $1.5 million in 2017 and 2018. As part of the deal, United States Attorney for Delaware David Weis would recommend Hunter Biden be given only probation for the tax charges.
Weis was appointed special counsel in the case by Attorney General Merrick Garland when the investigation into the president’s son began in 2018.
The plea deal outraged many who felt it underscored a two-tiered justice system and gave validity to the allegation of influence-peddling leveled against the Biden family. Republicans in the House of Representatives launched an inquiry into the plea deal and the Department of Justice’s decision to approve the agreement on Aug. 1.
Judge Maryellen Noreika of the United States District Court for the District of Delaware rejected the plea deal related to the tax charges on July 26.
“The indictment compounds the pressure the Bidens were already facing this week: On Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., directed Republican leaders in his chamber to open an impeachment inquiry centered on allegations that Joe Biden profited from his son’s foreign business dealings while holding office,” per CNBC.
Hunter Biden has been open about his addiction issues and drug use. In 2014, he was discharged from the Navy after testing positive for cocaine, noted Fox News.
Abbe Lowell, an attorney representing Hunter Biden, described the indictment as “expected” in a statement to the media.
“The evidence in this matter has not changed in the last six weeks, but the law has and so has MAGA Republicans’ improper and partisan interference in this process,” he said, per The Guardian. “Hunter Biden possessing an unloaded gun for 11 days was not a threat to public safety, but a prosecutor, with all the power imaginable, bending to political pressure presents a grave threat to our system of justice.”
“We believe these charges are barred by the agreement the prosecutors made with Mr. Biden, the recent rulings by several federal courts that this statute is unconstitutional, and the facts that he did not violate that law, and we plan to demonstrate all of that in court,” Lowell continued.
President Biden has defended his son amid his continuous legal woes.
“First of all, my son has done nothing wrong,” Biden said while speaking with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle on May 5. “I trust him. I have faith in him.”
